Gemplus Selected for Electronic Visa Pilot in France

Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and
NASDAQ: GEMP), the world's leading provider of smart card solutions,
today announces that it has been selected to supply contactless smart
card technology for the "Biodev" project, an initiative spearheaded
by an ad-hoc grouping of European Member States for enhanced border
control of immigrant visa holders inside the Schengen(1) area. Within
this project, Gemplus is working closely with Sagem, who is the prime
contractor.

In this first phase of the "Biodev" project, Gemplus has delivered
smart cards based on "GemBorder"(2), its ICAO-compliant contactless
chip technology for electronic passports and visas. The cards contain
a built-in smart chip-antenna to be used for contactless
authentication of biometrics data. GemBorder contains biometric
information about the immigrant visa-holder, such as fingerprint
details and facial features. The visa-holder is then authenticated
against the information stored on the chip at immigration
checkpoints. The card itself is carried in a cardholder pocket placed
inside the passport books. The chip can also be delivered in the
form-factor of an e-visa sticker placed inside the passport.

"It was critical for us to work with a vendor like Gemplus, whose
technology not only strictly complies with the industry standards for
electronic visa and passport applications, but also offers superior
levels of performance and security", said Jean-Paul Jainsky, Sagem.
"Gemplus and Sagem have experienced a long and successful partnership
in the identity market, and with the Biodev project we are together
entering a market space where the need for strong and reliable
security is imperative to enhance European border control processes."

"The launch of the Biodev project demonstrates the French and
other EU Governments' willingness to use the strong authentication
enabled by smart card technology and biometrics", said Jacques
Seneca, Executive Vice President of Gemplus' ID & Security Business
Division. "Contactless smart card technology is today the preferred
technology for border control applications, and is available through
multiple form-factors including ID card, passport page inlay, and
sticker labels. Not only will it help European Governments to gain
reliable control of who is entering countries in the Schengen area,
but it also creates convenience advantages for visa-holders through
faster and more efficient security checks at airports."

Initially the project will be tested at the airports of Paris
Roissy Charles de Gaulle, Paris Orly, Marseille, and Lyon in France,
the Brussels airport in Belgium, and the port in Marseille, France.
It involves French Consulates in 3 different countries for smart
card-based Schengen visa issuance, with plans to eventually extend it
to other countries.

About Gemplus

Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and
NASDAQ: GEMP) is the world's leading player in the smart card
industry in both revenue and total shipments (source:
Gartner-Dataquest (2004), Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor.). It has
sold over 5 billion smart cards.

With security at its core, and 2400 patents and patent
applications produced by its innovative R&D team, Gemplus delivers a
wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas including
Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking,
Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access
control.

(c)2005 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus, GemBorder and the
Gemplus logo, are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus S.A. and
are registered in certain countries. All other trademarks and service
marks, whether registered or not in specific countries, are the
property of their respective owners.

Some of the statements contained in this release constitute
forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events
or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown
risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our
industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or
achievements to be materially different from any future results,
levels of activities, performance, or achievements expressed or
implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results
may differ materially. Although we believe that the expectations
reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot
guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or
achievements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those estimated by the forward-looking statements
contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in
wireless communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to
develop new technology, and the effects of competing technologies
developed and expected intense competition generally in our main
markets; profitability of our expansion strategy; challenges to or
loss of our intellectual property rights; our ability to establish
and maintain strategic relationships in our major businesses; our
ability to develop and take advantage of new software and services;
and the effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share
price. Moreover, neither we nor any other person assumes
responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such
forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained
in this release speak only as of this release. We are under no duty
to update any of the forward-looking statements after this date to
conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the
occurrence of anticipated results.

LUXEMBOURG, May 24 /PRNewswire/ --

@@start.t1@@ ---------------------------------
(1) The Schengen treaty was first signed in 1985 between seven European
countries to end internal border checkpoints and controls. More
countries have joined over the past years. At present, there are 15
Schengen countries, all in Europe. These countries are: Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
(2) GemBorder, a contactless chip technology for electronic passports and
visas from Gemplus, complies with The International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) specifications by delivering a platform that
enables secure and flexible management of passport/visa holder
details on the chip, such as name, address, nationality, passport/
visa number etc., as well as a set of biometric data for strong
authentication features. The contactless chip, which can be inserted
as an inlay or sticker inside the passport/visa or used within a
standard ID3 datapage or ID1 smart card, acts as a miniature computer
that requires an OS to activate and govern multiple tasks and
applications. The GemBorder platform uses Gemplus technology to
manage all contactless identification functions associated with
electronic passports.@@end@@